Jackie & Bridie - There Are No Lights On Our Christmas Tree

The Christmas season is well and truly upon us now, and many of the local houses are trying to out-do each other to see who can run up the biggest electricity bill for external decoration. All a far cry from the family described in this lovely folk song, There Are No Lights On Our Christmas Tree.

There was a lot of folk music in my upbringing, most of it local to the North-West of England. I didn’t really appreciate it then, partly because it wasn’t “cool”, and partly because of the prevalence of the Lancashire mill songs from the Houghton Weavers. There are still a fair number of Houghton Weaver songs that I like, but I much prefer the groups with a Liverpool slant, such as The Spinners and the singers of this song, Jackie and Bridie.

There Are No Lights On Our Christmas Tree is taken from a recording of the duo live at the Liverpool Philharmonic (iirc, my parents went to see this actual gig) which explains the banter at the start. The sleeve notes on the LP finish with the line “you will be hearing a lot more from the talented Jackie and Bridie”, it’s a shame that I probably won’t.